Barin Ski Resort, Iran

Barin Ski Resort

Design: RYRA Studio, architects

Iranian Resort Building

Location: Tehran, Iran

Shemshak is the second largest ski area in Iran after Dizin and situated just about 55 minutes drive from Tehran. In the fall 2008, the architects designed a ski resort within the distance of about 1 kilometer from the Shemshak ski piste in the heart of mountain. Here the nature is so unique that this project was taken as a demonstration one to investigate the interface between nature and architecture.

Barin Ski Resort

It aims to reach that the logic product of any architectural design process should be free and flexible formation responding to the surrounding forces. Natural forces here are Snow-covered landscapes as the characteristic feature of the place and the fluid lines of mountain embracing the building.

Inspired by location and based on physical program, there are different size of cells in the Barin Ski Resort which seem to be carved from a mass and their smooth and fluid surfaces shape both inside and outside of the volume. In the residential units we cut these surfaces into slices to have more delicacy. These free lines not only form the main and secondary spaces, but they also shape the elements and details ; they flow in the space and base on the function, they alter their shapes and directions.

pictures from architects

In design process we were also inspired by Igloos, the shelters which are built by native arctic residents’, but here topographic layers instead of ice blocks are put on each other to make a domical form. This Combined Metaphoric Design used both natural and human-made objects as inspiration sources to achieve its final form.

Hereby, all the necessities are defined in the main body to provide the space purity and integrity, resembling when snow lies on the ground and homogenates all the things from various colors and shapes.